


Come and Take a Look Inside

by voices_in_my_head



Category: Da Vinci's Demons
Genre: Leario is love and nothing hurts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voices_in_my_head/pseuds/voices_in_my_head
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riario is a hard man to draw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come and Take a Look Inside

Riario is harder to draw than Lucrezia ever was (not that he’ll ever tell him; he’s pretty sure he would end up with at least one cut, possibly more) so Leo has taken to waking up earlier than the other man (which is a big achievement, since Riario likes to get up with the sun) to draw him sleeping, because it’s usually easier to draw a person when they’re sleeping.

He has been doing this for over a week now and he has almost perfected Riario sleeping. Now it’s time to try to draw him awake.

The thing is: Riario sleeping is just another man. Of course, every man has different dreams but usually they’re either good or bad. People can sleep calmly, almost cheating death, or they can move around all night and steal the covers (okay, so that’s more Leo and he ended up sleeping on the floor for that) but it isn’t really hard. When you’re drawing a person sleeping all you’re looking at is their body. All that matters are their movements. When you’re drawing people awake you have to see much more. The hardest thing is the eyes, because they follow you everywhere, judging you or maybe not thinking about it at all. And that’s what you have to get on paper. This immortal look that you can look and wonder about what they’re thinking, because they’re humans, which means that the only person that know what they’re actually thinking are themselves.

Leo and Riario like to pretend they know humanity like nobody else; that the world may have parts undiscovered, but that that is definitely not the case of humanity’s. That is mostly true but sometimes you’ll see something, a poor man giving his bread to a child, a wife excusing her husband every indiscretion (other call it stupidity, Leo calls it love; undeserving love, but love all the same), and your brain will stop for some seconds and the only thing you’ll think will be “wow”.

Leo is looking for his wow. Riario is impressive, to say the least. He’s manipulative, a cold blooded killer, but he’s also a gentle lover, is almost ever smiling, even if the smiles are mostly fake. He’s the sort of man that would burn the world for his amusement, while at the same time burn himself alone just to show his devotion for God.

That’s the look Leo can’t draw. He isn’t a religious man, at least not like Riario. Sometimes he finds himself thinking of God, praying for him, hoping He’ll change the world. Other times he finds Catholics and all other religious people the stupidest on Earth for believing something they can’t see.

He and Riario don’t discuss religion often. They may speak of the Pope’s mistakes and all things done in God’s name but they never actually discuss Him.

If he’s being honest, Leo has been kind of running away from that matter. Religion makes his head hurt. He’s a scientist. He needs physical matters. Things he can prove. He wants to believe in God; believe there’s something out there to leave his chances to. He would be free of responsibilities and duties, leaving everything in God’s hands (he finds it funny how Catholics always place the good things under His name while blaming each other for the bad ones).

“What are you thinking of?” Leo his awaken from his daydreaming by Riario’s voice, who is still lying on his stomach, but has his head turned to him, placed under his hands.

“You and God,” Leo says, getting up and kissing him on the lips. Not because he wants to stop Riario from questioning but because the other man is naked and has only a small sheet covering a small piece of his body. Leo has trouble concentrating with all that naked flesh around, he’ll admit.

Zo would answer him that it is too early for such matters, Nico would have let him rant, listening attentively but not understanding half and Lucrezia… she would laugh and kiss him and make him forget all his previous thoughts.

Riario, however, after kissing back for some seconds turns his eyes (the ones that hunt Leo’s dreams), and asks, in a small voice, only used in the morning and around Leo, “what of it?”

Leo looks into two big brown pools (sometimes with a bit of black in it, others with a green glint) and tries to formulate his question.

“Why do you believe?” It isn’t the question he wants to ask, but it’s the one he settles on.

Riario keeps staring into his eyes and it’s starting to hurt Leo’s back, but he’s sure that if he gets up to go sit on the chair Riario won’t give him an honest answer, at least not the one he’s looking for.

“I have always been taught that God exists. Every day I prayed and I studied and whenever I questioned about wars and famines, my teachers and family would always tell me “we do not wonder God’s will” and I learnt to fear and respect him. But never love. He was this unimaginable thing on the other side of the world, like one of the beasts on a children’s book.”

He pauses and finally stops looking into Leo’s eyes, letting them fall on his hands. Leo wants to hold him but doesn’t, instead letting the other man finish his thoughts.

“One day, when I was about fifteen, I was wandering around Rome when I heard this young woman scream. It was night and cold and there was nothing I wanted more to do than to go back home, because surely someone had also heard the scream and were going to help her. She screamed again and I finally decided to go check in. A man was attacking her and I quickly got him off her, knocking him out. She was crying and thanking God for sending me her way and I started wondering. I had wanted to go home but I hadn’t.”

“That was your choice,” Leo says, not being able to hide his thoughts.

“It was my choice. I could have turned around and walked away, leaving that woman to an underserving faith, but instead I choose to help her because my teachers taught me that that was what God was: love; peace; forgiveness. He was what humans could never be: a being so good, made of pure light. That’s when I finally started believing in Him like I should have always done. I don’t believe He command us. I believe that He’s watching over us, seeing what His children are doing.”

“You believe because-“ Leo tries to finish his thought but can’t, not entirely sure he understands Riario’s reasoning.

“I believe in God because the human race is a miserable thing. We are killing each other for nothing more than materials and we turn on each other like nothing is wrong. So I believe because I need to hope that there is more. That this isn’t it.”

Riario finishes, looking into Leo’s eyes, who decides to kiss the other man again, finally starting to understand.

“I love you,” he murmurs because Riario is a cold blooded bastard. But he’s more than Leo: he has faith in more than himself, in more than humanity and if Leo’s honest, that’s something he’s envious of.

“I love you too,” Riario murmurs back, kissing him, and Leo, with only happy feelings inside of him, is starting to understand Riario’s belief in God. Not in the humanized God that the Catholics worship, but in these feelings of pure good.

“I love you,” he repeats again. And again.

Riario starts laughing and suddenly Leo is on top of him, staring into those eyes, which have that shade of green so hard to paint on them.

“I love you,” he repeats, this time against his lips, barely hearing his words. But it’s okay, because Riario has heard them and is telling them back and this, the two of them going from enemies, wanting each other dead, or at least to maim one another, to lovers, must be God’s work.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) It's around midnight and a half and I have been awake for far too many hours so this may not be very good, but Leario has become one of my OTPs (I'm planning of making a video on them in a few more days).
> 
> 2) I consider myself an atheist, however I'm not one that hates on Christians, but instead feels the utmost respect for believing something they can't see. Even if there is a God I don't believe him to be like our world says he is. If anybody is upset by any message in this work I apologize; it was not my intention. I just wonder about Riario's relationship with God, since he is, after all, a killer (sure, we want to believe he's just misunderstood, but let's face it, he's a cold blooded killer). It's not impossible for me to come back to this later, since like I said, I definetly need sleep. But for now this is what you have.
> 
> 3) Leario fandom: here I come !


End file.
